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Hall of Fame finds home on Ewing’s wall

83 plaques hang in the foyer of the AHS gym

The Atascadero Greyhound Athletic Hall of Fame plaques found a new home, in what might be the most relevant and appropriate location for the growing host of Hall of Famers — the covered walls of the Atascadero High School Ewing Gymnasium.

Ewing Gymnasium is named for R.H. “Bud” Ewing, whose impact on AHS might not be measurable. Appropriately, Ewing was inducted in the inaugural 2007 Hall of Fame class, and now hangs on the wall of the gym within feet of his name.

Ewing “coached, taught, and served as an administrator at Atascadero High School from 1936-1971,” according to the HOF plaque information.  Ewing also founded the long-standing Atascadero Memorial Track Meet, which still runs as one of the great high school track meets in the county each spring.

“When I started teaching there, Bud was the assistant principal.” former AHS athletic director Donn Clickard said. “I was the football coach, and became athletic director in 1972 — but Bud had already retired by then.”

According to Clickard, he remembers Ewing through many of the players that he coached, and over time developed a deep sense of respect for AHS history. Clickard was instrumental in the development of the Athletic Hall of Fame, which draws on a foundation that Ewing helped build from the dawn of Atascadero athletics.

“After WWII he started Memorial Track Meet,” Clickard said. “We brought it back [when I was athletic director], and Bud did our awards program, and handed out the medals. We brought him back to do some of those things he enjoyed so much.”

Clickard mentioned that what he can draw from pictures of Ewing through the years, Ewing was a one-man show on the sidelines for Atascadero.

“He was the man for a long time there,” Clickard said. “If you talked to the guys that played for him, he coached everything. And he taught all day long.”

Like many of the coaches that have walked the halls of AHS, Ewing was supported by his wife Helen, who also worked for the school district.  The two of them continue to give back to the community by their namesake — the Bud and Helen Ewing Scholarship Award goes to a student who is going on to college to play sports.

Ewing’s plaque, along with the 82 other member plaques, hang in three displays on the walls around the entrance to Ewing Gymnasium, dressed in with historical photos.

“[The display] is now home where it belongs,” Clickard said succinctly.

The cabinets holding the plaques, as always, were built, installed and donated by Steve Sligh of Sligh Cabinets, and are, of themselves, a symbol of the community support that has grown the athletic program from the days of Ewing, to Clickard, and now currently under Sam DeRose.

Each of the 83 Hall of Fame plaques are a reminder that one person’s accomplishments are a part of a greater tapestry that reaches beyond generations and social boundaries, and that as a whole we are greater than the sum of our parts.

Coincidentally, Sligh, Clickard, and DeRose each have a child playing a role on a varsity sports team at Atascadero High School this year.  Sligh and Clickard have a son and daughter, respectively, playing varsity basketball, and DeRose’s son finished up a championship season as a member of the Greyhounds’ varsity football team.

Whether any of them make the walls of Ewing Gymnasium in the future, has yet to be seen. But a look upon the plaques will tell that not all the members of the Hall of Fame took the same path to get there.

“We have a history a success [at AHS],” Clickard said. “And sometimes our success can be measured in wins and losses, but sometimes it can’t.”

Coaches, players, teachers, and community supporters make up the family that comes together under the roof of Ewing Gymnasium, fills the seats of Memorial Stadium, or takes its place on the sidelines of the fields, courts, courses, and pools to watch the future leaders of the community practice and execute their craft.

“What I think the Hall of Fame promotes is the kind of things that we heard at the ceremony [in November],” Clickard said. “I think the pride that comes out of the ceremony is found in the relationships, and an appreciation for those relationships. It is not about wins and losses.”

That is a common thread through the 83-member display on the wall at Ewing Gymnasium — winning comes in many forms, and is shared on broad shoulders.